Because there's a low below the low you know.

Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel

It’s too easy, really, getting my material from Linda Hatch. I don’t know if she’s clueless or venomous, but everything she writes is ill-conceived from a partner standpoint. It would be laughable if it didn’t cause such harm. I guess I’ll never cease to be amazed by the recovering sex addict CSATs out there who continue to write and say things that are damaging to partners. But again, most of them are sex addicts themselves, so why am I ever surprised?

A recent posting of Hatch’s, 5 Ways Sex Addiction Recovery Can Get Derailed, prompted some partner advocates to respond, but she wouldn’t allow most of our comments. She even removed one of her own after being checked for lashing out in typical SA fashion. She could have let the comment stand and apologized for it, but better to pretend it never happened. Like a certain group of people we know, she seems very concerned with image management.

The article starts out with an overview of discovery–the kinds of vile behaviors SA’s are famous for getting busted for, along with a description of how things usually happen next: “upheaval” of the relationship, finding help for the addict, his various means of attempting recovery–individual therapy, couples therapy, inpatient intensives, outpatient intensives…Cha-ching.

After that comes this passage, divulging the hard and likely truth of relapse, while minimizing how profoundly wrong and disturbing it is:

At some point the addict felt that he or she had seen the light and was able to refrain from the compulsive behavior for a period of months or years. Then seemingly out of the blue, the addict starts secretly acting out again. Often it is the same old behavior but sometimes it includes different behaviors as well. Both partners are dismayed and the trauma begins all over again. Something didn’t quite work, but what?

So much is wrong with that paragraph, where to begin? At what point, for instance, did he “see the light,” and what, exactly is the light? Did he see it when he realized the amount of money he stood to lose in a divorce? Was “the light” the idea of his friends finding out he likes to wear leather panties and meet men in the Home Depot parking lot? Or was it the possibility of his boss being directed to his computer history at work, where all the donkey love and ass porn links still sit in the cookies? OK, he sees whatever his particular light is at whatever his particular point is and tries to be a good boy for a while. OR, more probably after decades of increasingly disturbing activities, he hides it better.

“Then seemingly out of the blue,” he starts visiting Wawa Asian Spa on the sly. Oh, and he might even add some new extracurriculars–like “not just petting” the family dog. (I am not making this stuff up; women tell me things.) It’s like Tinkersex floated out of the sky, waved her magic dildo, and he was under a spell. Gah, both partners are dismayed. I’m dismayed when my dog eats my glasses. When I find out that, after everything he’s already put me through, my husband has been faking recovery and exposing me to genital warts or worse, I’m not that word.

“Something didn’t quite work, but what?” Hmmm, let me see. The SEX ADDICT didn’t work! Because he never really wanted to in the first place. But no, says Hatch, who proceeds to give him five sad excuses.

Thank you for your blog. The pain of discovering your partner is a sex addict is so intense; it’s just hard for people who have not experienced it to understand. In addition, I immediately left and found the internet to be full of people promising that it is fixable. My gut told me no so it is nice to get validation of that feeling outside of myself. It is a dark road ahead alone, It would have been a much darker road if I had stayed with him.

I’ve seen several of your posts taniarochelle and Diane and need a good reality check from you and others. I am at the crossroads again, deciding to stay or go. I discovered the addict, convinced him of his problem, supported him through treatment… and drank the kool-aid, dropping my separation in March believing in the surface changes I saw and words I guess I just wanted to hear. And here we are 4 months later with the few lies I know (so I’m sure there are several I don’t know) and most addictive attitudes and behaviors (if not outright acting out) back in place. And my SA meeting the first 4 of Linda Hatch’s reasons.
No I’m not dismayed. I’m hurt, scared, confused, angry. And yes, I’m ANGRY. As if that’s the most damaging emotion the partner can exhibit. ‘You need to control your rage honey, it’s what’s damaging our marriage the most.’ Huh?!? You crush my heart, gas light me, victimize me and force me into the role of partner and on occasion I shouldn’t get stark raving mad at you? Like when, 8 months later you haven’t actually discontinued the hooker phone cell service as you said you would because having an extra phone out of town as a busy surgeon is convenient!!! What about your lies from our very first conversation? What about YOUR intimacy issue? What about the online dating? What about the prostitutes?
Who would knowingly choose a life of suspicion, of having to police, of having to punish when the ‘boundaries are crossed’? Aren’t we all adults here? Aren’t we all responsible for keeping our vows, for maintaining trust through honesty? I KNOW my husband would NEVER tolerate this from me or any other woman.
I am # 6 in a series of marriages (5) and serious relationships (1) across his 55 years. Why am I even considering just being ‘dismayed’ at today’s reality and rolling up my sleeves to get my addict back on track and keep feeling bad for the problems I bring to the relationship?

“Dismay”… that just kills me. “Oh dear, I was dismayed to see that my shoes and purse didn’t quite match.”
I wish there was a word to say “soul raped”, along with the actual physical risk to life and health by their “slips”.
“We were both dismayed when my husband picked up the bat and whacked me upside the head again.” Really?!

I choked on the first paragraph—her hilarious description of discovery, as if you It was just a wrinkle in the day. Then talking about the initial “upheaval”. So does that include getting the hysterectomy because of previously unknown STD’s? She starts out diminishing the entire truth and fact and impact, and writing it without any real agency, except to say that the “couple” finds help. It all just “happens”. Who’s she kidding? It’s the female partner that drives any notion of getting help. So the SA doesn’t have to take any responsibility for creating this problem, but he’s given credit for finding help. And then, there’s no mention of the cost of his non-recovery to the partner at all.

They love their delusional world, especially when they get credentials to back it up.

She has to diminish our reality because she is a sex addict herself. If she faced the reality of the harm they do then she would have to admit she is a horrible person. Yes! I said it. They don’t JUST do bad things. They are bad people. Insane most probably….what sane person calls cheating on your partner a “slip”? It’s nuts and they all know it’s nuts. They followed Carnes into looney land and no one normal has ever challemged them. Times up for all the sex addict CSATS. People are acknowledging that the emperor is naked.

I think my SA husband actually enjoys the fact that I am watching him, snooping, etc. It,s a game to him. I replace control freak Mom from the part of his young life when he was reacting to all the goofy stuff by doing like Dad, objectify women, look at them in a voyeuristic manner, or visit prostitutes, I just have this feeling that he enjoys the attention! I just do it to annoy him, I really don’t care what he does anymore. I am just assessing my options, weighing what is in my best interests. I have no desire to have a meaningful relationship with a former rising star in SA, who fooled everyone. Of course, he LOVED the attention! Did I mention this slip he is trying to over-come now is 9 years after his full recovery? Excuse is feeling very upset over his illnesses. He will still live a long life in spite of a few problems. I can say that he never healed, things were tolerable for awhile, then we just sort of lived together as friends(?), not really happy but not too sad, just numbness. Living with a nine -year- old emotional age is not my idea of a marriage, But, the money is good, and the adult daughter does not know and hasn’t had this trauma in her life, and so far her inheritance is in tact, and good. cShe suffered enough living in this family. I am 68, husband, 69. He left SA the first time because of a job that required travel out of town five days a week, most of the time. He also was seeing a therapist, I think he fooled her too. How I suffered as an s-anon, hearing all that crap of co-dependant, etc. etc. I just don’t f’ing care anymore about spouse. He annoys me by being here, but I can take that better than suffering all that former pain. IT Is not my fault, I deserve way better in my life, and I really think that he is a BAD person.